


50/50: Whitechapel

by TheOCDDI (TooHotchInTheHottub)



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 02:24:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6219943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooHotchInTheHottub/pseuds/TheOCDDI
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Team are called to a scene in the early morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. That Was a Perfect Example of What Not to Do.

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Как не стоило делать](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6663991) by [ptycster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ptycster/pseuds/ptycster)



> Part of a challenge I have set myself. 50 fics in 50 days.
> 
> All Whitechapel to help with the final bit of development of Atropos Unlaced.
> 
> Each chapter is stand-alone.  
> Not all are Chandler/Kent.  
> There will be AUs.  
> Minimum word count for each chapter is 500.
> 
> I got these prompts from someone who will be credited as soon as I can find the correct information.
> 
> Let me know what you thought.

The rhythmic flash of lights lit the scene. It was just gone 3am, so the purposeful activities that might otherwise have occupied the milling coppers - more for the sake of any nosey members of the public than real operational efficiency - were no longer needed, so the boys in blue were standing about morosely, yawning a lot and looking put out. 

Joe took it all in and he couldn't really blame them. He had had around forty-five minute's sleep because his unquiet mind was chasing thoughts around his noggin. But, Joe was a Detective Inspector, and as such he had to set an example, so he fixed his jaw in a suitably severe fashion and ducked under the tape. He shot the nearest bobby a 'look lively' expression and swallowed down a smile when he jumped to attention. He ducked into the white plastic tent and the facade slipped away, his shoulders slumped and Kent yawned at him from over Miles' hunched shoulders.

Llewellyn was somehow crouched down over the victim, her belly was swollen and rounded with child. Joe wondered if she was perpetually pregnant - to be honest he seemed to have lost track of exactly how many children she had. She disappeared for a short time and then her stomach seemed to swell over the next few months until she went away again. Joe briefly wondered if he had ever met her husband, then wondered if it was insensitive to assume that she even had one, before he remembered that he was meant to be working, and recaptured the thread of Llewellyn's spiel.

"...quite a hefty blow to the left side of the head. I will have to check, obviously, but this house brick seems like it might be the murder weapon. Whoever used it would have gotten a lot of blood on their arms."

"The vic's mate was covered in it, he reckons it's from the first aid he administered." Kent supplied to the others. 

"Well, there are also a few bloody fingerprints on the brick..."

She was interrupted by a strange buzzing, everyone's attention turned to the victim's hand. A phone vibrated insistently. For a moment everyone was still, not certain what to do. Llewellyn reached over and tried to unhook it, but she was on the wrong side of the corpse, so it was Chandler who snagged it from the loose grip of dead fingers. The whole thing was so unusual that he didn't even note the slide of his gloved fingers against the skin of the deceased. He looked down to see a small notification flashing in the top right-hand corner, and his own face. The front camera was on and set to video.

Joe stopped the feed, hitting the small square.

"Maybe there's something useful on it." Miles offered. Chandler started the video from the beginning, Miles and Kent creeping closer to peer over his shoulder, Llewellyn was left to struggle to her feet without assistance. The footage was jumpy. The victim had obviously started filming accidentally, all of a sudden a conversation he was having with his friend turned violent. Tinny voices leaked out of the speakers as the argument reached a crescendo. Llewellyn was on her feet by the time the death blow came, the phone still in the victim's hand, his friend and murderer's face almost artfully framed as he held up his hands in defense.

"That is a perfect example of how not to do things." the M.E deadpanned.


	2. If school sucked, Mr. Entwhistle's English class was the biggest Dyson in the building.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> High School Teacher/Student AU.
> 
> Just a little teaser. Kent is expecting his usual, boring old English teacher - he gets something else entirely. A fresh-faced young teacher. Blonde, blue eyed and handsome. He's totally screwed.  
> His best friend, Mansell, thinks the whole thing is really quite amusing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I have been writing, but I work on paper and type stuff up and my computer was just not having a bar of it. 
> 
> Will catch up, though :)

Kent shrugged his backpack onto his shoulder, took a deep breath, and wondered – not for the first time – exactly what he had done to deserve Entwhistle for a double class on a Monday morning. The man had no clue, or no care, that he was boring everyone. If a student failed to grasp a concept, he somehow felt it was no concern of his. Kent had read about Professor Binns in the Harry Potter books and it had brought on such terrible flashbacks to English class that he had to make a cup of tea.  
So it was a surprise that, when he walked into the ageing scholars domain, sitting behind the desk wasn't the rheumy-eyed, soft jawed man that Kent had expected to see. This was a young man, probably straight out of university. He was nervously smoothing his hands down the front of his starched white shirt. He wore blue trousers, their matching jacket slung over the back of the chair. His shirt was opened at the neck, an abandoned tie was hastily stuffed into the pocket of the jacket, its end snaking on the floor. Kent tried to get his brain to kick in, somehow make his brain work.

That was when the man looked at him.

His eyes were blue, a shade that people had written terrible poetry about since the genetic defect that caused it had first presented itself. His hair was blonde and neat. And Kent was convinced he would never be able to move his feet again. He would grow old on this spot – stood captive in the doorway of Mr. Entwhistle's bloody stupid English class.

Mansell put paid to that.

“Come on, Emma! Some of us want to learn.” He called out, and suddenly everything was painfully normal.

“Shut up, Finley. If your parents weren't related you might have gotten a better name.”

“I'll keep that in mind, Emerson.” Mansell shot back while he shifted his things to make room for Kent.

“Well, if we're all here, we shall begin.” The blonde man began, only to be interrupted almost instantly by a girl in the second row.

“Sir, where's Mr. Entwhistle, Sir? Is he dead, sir?” She smiled through black lipstick that had smudged onto her teeth. The blonde man stared at her incredulously before he recovered.

“No, Mr. Entwhistle is on a leave of absence. I believe it is of a personal nature, one I certainly won't divulge to you, Miss...”

“Hanratty.”

“Now, if you're quite finished. My name is Mr. Chandler, and I am your teacher for the foreseeable future. I understand that Mr. Entwhistle was finished teaching you about Keats, and we are to move on to the works of Oscar...” His voice trailed off as he turned to the blackboard and searched for the chalk. 

“Chalk.” he said quietly to himself.

“What's that, Sir?” Fitz asked from his seat at the back beside MacCormack. He was smiling a mean smile.

“Where is the chalk?” Chandler asked, his eye firmly on Fitz. He knew the ginger boy must have taken it.

“Look, whoever has it, please just return it.”

Nobody moved.

“I can wait all day.”

Kent looked around and sighed. He stood and walked over to the radiator under the window. Behind it, on an unseen ledge was a box of chalk. Kent knew that was Fitz's favoured hiding place since the bully had taken his pencil case in the first week. Kent wondered if he had some personal problem with writing implements. He took it to the man at the front who looked relieved.

“Thank you...?” He said in a quiet and refined voice, barely loud enough for anyone else to hear.

“Kent.” Emerson offered shyly, afraid to look into those eyes from such a close proximity.

“Kent.” Chandler repeated, this time definitely too quietly to be heard by anyone else. 

On his way back to his chair, Fitz made kissy noises at him, and Kent did his best not to blush.  
He failed.

When Kent sat at his seat, Mansell shooting him a look halfway between sympathy and a burning desire to embarrass him about all of this in the future, Chandler in looping cursive had written a quote on the board.

I can resist everything except temptation.

“I want you all to think about what you know – or you think you know – about Oscar Wilde while I take the roll.” As he called the names, Chandler looked at every student, trying to commit their faces to memory. When he looked up at Kent, his lip curled into a small smile.

Kent's stomach flipped. 

Then the moment was over.

"Wasn't Wilde a massive poof, sir?!" Fitz supplied unhelpfully. 

Chandler ducked his head, he rubbed at the bridge of his nose and sighed. 

"Some," he began, his voice a lot stronger than his posture suggested, "cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go. But, to answer your question, he did have male lovers. He also had a wife, and in his younger years lived a fairly respectable life. However, he was part of the aesthetic movement. It was an intellectual and artistic movement. It emphasised the importance of aesthetics over other social and political themes. In other words, he and his fellow aesthetes put beauty over politics.” He fiddled with a pile of papers, shuffling through them until he looked up and caught Kent's eye.

“Kent, could you hand these out to the class please?”

Kent rose slowly, wondering what the hell he'd done to deserve this. Mr. Chandler was so handsome, couldn't he just let Kent and his alarmingly instant crush melt quietly into the background? Kent looked uncertainly at Mansell only to see his friend waggling his eyebrows furiously.

No bloody help, as per fucking usual, he thought.

He tried not to think about brushing against chandler's long fingers as he took the sheaf of papers, tried not to let the whirlwind thoughts take a hold in his head and he just wished his knees would work.

Sometimes it really sucked to be seventeen.


	3. I'm sorry about all the ducks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe and Kent have a court appearance today,  
> Mansell rather ruins sartorial elegance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, this one rather got away from me, and before I knew it a little vignette was a full blown thing with vaguely kinky Chandler (my favourite kind) but I dunno if it was too much and a bit OOC. Let me know :)

It was supposed to be perfectly simple day.

 

Kent and Chandler had a court appearance after lunch, so the morning would be reserved for paperwork. Chandler and Kent had taken extra care in dressing this morning, Joe had a crisp white shirt ready to go (not that that was specifically true on court dates) and his navy blue suit had made an appearance. He had been told that it was reminiscent of the uniform he had worn as a bobby, while lending a certain gravity and authority to him.

Kent meanwhile had used the occasion to debut a brand new grey suit. It was a light grey, a little trendier than most might have advised for a court appearance, but the cut suited him enough that a jury would probably forgive him. He had carefully selected a dark blue tie that morning and a dark grey shirt. He looked great. Meg had made him do a shuffling twirl when he walked into the room that morning, part model, part marrionette. Mansell had had a catcall ready, and just as Kent had finally thought everyone had settled down, Miles had pointedly asked Chandler his opinion. Both he and Chandler blushed their way through the answer.

 

After that, Kent had assumed that the worst was over.

What a fool he was.

 

About an hour before he and Chandler were due to leave for the courthouse, Mansell came back from lunch with a half-eaten, badly secured biryani. He aimed to put it in the fridge and have it for dinner.

It inevitably wound up down Kent's front, landing sloppily in his lap.

 

“Fuck's sake, Mansell! What the fuck?!” Kent leapt to his feet, spreading halfway congealed curry over his desk and the floor.

 

Miles and Chandler appeared as Mansell advanced on Kent armed with a scrunched up kleenex and half-arsed apologies.

 

“I've got to leave for court in an hour! Look at the state of me. Not bad enough I look fucking twelve, now I look like I went for a swim in a fucking exploded curry house!”

 

“Alright,” Mansell grumbled, “I said I was sorry. Settle down.”

 

It was like waving a red flag at a bull. Luckily Miles knew the signs when one of his underlings was about to give another a black eye. He stepped in swiftly.

 

“Alright lad, you and the boss can leave early, go past yours and you can get changed before the trial, alright?” Kent eyed Mansell bitterly before he nodded.

 

“Okay?” Miles asked Chandler, who was taking in the sight of sauce, rice and whatever else all over his incident room, looking like all he wanted was to be somewhere else. He nodded slowly.

 

“I'm not getting in the DI's car like this.” Kent announced, “ I think I have some spare trousers in my locker. I don't know if I have a shirt-”

 

“Use one of his.” Miles offered, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder to indicate Chandler.

 

Chandler and Kent locked eyes then, neither one really sure how comfortable the other was with the plan. Kent raised an eyebrow in question. Chandler answered with a slight nod, before turning and retrieving a shirt from the drawer in his office.

****

Ten minutes later, Kent and Chandler were in Chandler's car, Kent trying to disappear into the upholstery in his ratty jeans and slightly-too-large shirt. Chandler tried desperately to concentrate on the road, and not the sight of Kent in his shirt.

 

It seemed rather intimate to Chandler.

He wasn't sure he liked it.

He wasn't sure he didn't like it either.

 

All he knew was that he was discomfited.

 _Business as usual then, Joseph_ , his mind supplied unhelpfully.

 

“I really am sorry about all this, sir. Especially all the swearing. It was unprofessional.”

 

“I thought you were going to flatten poor Mansell.” he answered, a small laugh hiding in the words.

 

“Well, could you blame me?”

 

“Can't say I could. It was a very nice suit. Looked good on you. A shame it only got one outing before disaster struck. I hope you have a good dry cleaner.”

 

“So do I.” Kent said, hoping the compliment that Chandler had bestowed hadn't coloured his face too much. They spent the rest of the trip in silence. A slightly more comfortable one than before, but still not totally at ease. Soon they were parked on Kent's street, his house visible from the fortuitous parking spot.

 

“Would you like to come in, sir? I'll have to have a shower and stuff, so you might be more comfortable on the lounge than in here, getting stared at by the old lady in number 17.”

“What's the lady in number 17's problem?”

 

“My theory is boredom. Martin, my housemate, reckons she's a witch. Anna, my other housemate reckons we should have better things to talk about than old ladies and their snooping habits.”

 

“We're policemen. Snooping is our job. She might teach you a thing or two.” Joe answered as he walked beside Kent to the house.

 

“Not unless I learn Polish, sir. She can, I suspect, speak perfect English, she just doesn't.” He opened the door and waited for Chandler to step into the hall before he shut the door.

 

“Kitchen is on the left, living room is on the right. I'll be upstairs. Help yourself to some tea. There might be some green tea there somewhere towards the back of the cupboard.”

 

Then he was gone and Joe was left to wander into the living room.

 

“Oh, and... sorry about all the ducks!” he called down from the stairs. Joe didn't have much time to wonder what it meant before he knew.

 

Kent's entire house seemed devoted to ducks. They graced the wallpaper, the cushions, there were duck bookends, and a trio of flying ducks graced a neatly painted square over the lounge. Joe walked into the kitchen, only to find a different duck-themed wallpaper on these walls and further ducks. The whole thing was mad, but all the fixtures and furnishings were good quality, and the mixture of textures and colours made for a pleasing decoration.

 

“Duckorations...” He mused before he quietly kicked himself, glad no one was around to hear it.

 

“Duckorations. I like it.” Kent laughed behind him. Joe turned, the other man smelled of soap, but was fully dressed in another suit – this one black. His shirt beneath looked familiar, but Joe pushed the thought away while he watched Kent's slender hands work the tie around his neck into a neat knot. Joe must have stared in awed horror at all the wallpaper for much longer than he thought.

 

“Is there a reason there are so many ducks?”

 

“Mad landlord. Some kind of scientist. Not a biologist. I think he was a geologist or something. Totally barmy, wanted to become an interior decorator. I don't think he was completely unsuccessful, but he certainly keeps with a theme. To be honest, we might have added a few. In for a penny and all that...”

 

“I like it.” Chandler announced, as though that was relevant. Kent beamed.

 

“Well, if you're ready, we should be going.” Joe cleared his throat. He'd been staring at Kent again. Kent had been staring back. Sometimes they caught themselves doing it, usually after everyone else had noticed. Joe was glad the only ones to see it this time were inanimate ducks.

 

“I am. Completely curry free and ready to put some villains away.”

 

**** 

It was a successful day in court, both Joe and Chandler gave their evidence beautifully. Something Joe attributed to the fact that it wasn't until he sat watching Kent under cross-examination – his own task discharged – that he finally recognised the shirt Kent wore.

 

It was the one he had loaned Kent this morning.

 

It was then that he realised that he felt a delicious sense of ownership, as though by wearing his shirt, the man also became _his_.

 

The inner-Miles that took up part of his internal monologue gleefully reminded him that Kent had pretty much been his from the moment they met. If only he had the ginger to reach out and take him.

 

****

“You did well, Kent. The jury seemed to like you. No wonder, that suit makes you look very professional.”

 

Kent smiled.

 

“I especially like your shirt.” Joe kept his eyes fixed on the road.

 

“Oh. UH. Sir... I...”

 

“It's perfectly alright, Kent. I assume that you merely wanted to save time?”

 

Kent stayed silent, his eyes reddened slightly.

 

“Unless. Unless there's some other reason. Some sentimental reason? I wouldn't mind. I might prefer that, really.”

 

“Sir?”

 

“I... I like you in that shirt, Kent. It... It made me feel something, something I haven't felt in quite some time. Or at least, something I've denied feeling for a while now.”

 

“Sir?” Kent looked like confusion and hope were warring within him.

 

“Would you let me buy you dinner? I know it's not necessarily the done thing, and technically against protocol-”

 

“Yes.” Kent breathed.

 

“Tonight?”

 

“Yes.” He was almost breathless, a slow smile spreading across his face.

 

“Excellent.” Joe smiled too.

 

The last two hours of shift were hellish, and were only improved by the look on Miles' face when Joe and Kent walked out on time, and going in the same direction.

 

“Bout bloody time, eh Skip?” Mansell said, watching the glass doors as though he could still see Chandler and Joe walking away.

 

“Not wrong, Mansell. Might have something to do with the fact that he's still wearing His Nibbs' shirt, despite having the opportunity to change it. I think the boss would have liked that in his own strange way.”

 

“They're both barmy.”

 

“You've been married so often, I always assumed you were a romantic.”

 

“There's a fine line between being romantic and being pathetic.”

 

“Nah, give 'em a chance. They'll always be fighting an uphill battle. Especially on the job. Mum's the word, eh?”

 

****

Kent hadn't known what to expect, now that he and Joe were going out. He was a little worried about someone seeing them, but Joe had it sorted, taking him to a quiet pub. They had parked Joe's car at Joe's flat around the corner. Kent didn't want to be presumptuous, but he had wondered if Joe had meant anything by it.

 

“I thought this would be preferable to a curry.” Joe joked as they sat opposite each other in a quiet corner booth.

 

“Oh, please. I never want to see another biryani for as long as I live, Joe.”

 

“I'll try to remember that, Emerson.”

 

“ You can call me Em. My family have always called me Gus, but I'd prefer Em, if you don't mind.”

 

“Gus?”

 

“My parents, not satisfied with naming me Emerson, they followed it up with the middle name Augustus. I swear, people in the early eighties shouldn't have been allowed to name children.”

 

“Gus. I like it, but I see why you prefer Em. And I assumed middle names were meant to be embarrassing.”

 

“Yeah? What's yours?”

 

Joe coughed nervously, and hoped to divert attention by pondering the menu aloud.

 

“Joseph.” Kent warned.

 

“Jonquil.” he murmured.

 

“As in a daffodil?”

 

“Essentially.”

 

“Joseph _Jonquil_ Chandler...”

 

“Yes, Emerson _Augustus_ Kent?”

 

“I'm glad you asked me out tonight.”

 

“It had to happen eventually, didn't it? I mean, I could only prevaricate so long before I plucked up the courage, or you got sick of waiting for me to get my act together and moved on.”

 

Kent was shocked at Joe's forthrightness, but then, Joe seemed to share that feeling, suddenly very interested in folding and unfolding his paper napkin. Finally Kent reached forward and stilled Joe's hands. The blonde man dragged his eyes up to meet Kent's before he blurted something else, and surprised himself once again.

 

“I'm not very hungry, Em. Let me take you to my flat. We can continue our conversation there.”

 

Kent just swallowed thickly and nodded. Taking Joe's proffered hand. Joe smiled, bright and nervous.

 

Once they were inside Joe's flat, Kent removed his jacket, and couldn't miss the sweep of Joe's eyes over his torso, taking in the sight of his shirt on Kent's frame greedily. He licked his bottom lip. Kent watched the swipe of the tongue with great interest.

 

“May I kiss you, Joe? It's just you keep looking at me like that.”

 

“Like what.”

 

“Like you are terrified and turned on, and like you have some kinky thing with me wearing your shirt.” Kent stepped into Joe's space and stayed there while Joe's pupils grew darker.

 

“I rather think I am. I rather think I do. Is it wrong that when I saw that you were still wearing my shirt – even though you didn't have to – it all finally clicked into place? That I finally allowed myself to realise not only how you felt about me, but how I felt about you? Is it wrong that it seems like physical proof that you, in some sense, belong to me – or, perhaps more correctly, belong with me?”

 

“Oh, Joe...” Kent finally closed the space between them and pressed his lips over Joe's. He kept his eyes open for the first few seconds, his vision filled with blue eyes and his mouth tasted the toothpaste Joe must have used before they clocked off. He closed his eyes and Joe made a small noise, one that pushed Kent to open his mouth and run his tongue over Joe's bottom lip.

 

They began to move their hands over each other, until after a short amount of time they were grappling towards the lounge, Joe's jacket and tie discarded, his shirt unbuttoned and his opened belt clinking with every movement. Kent went to shed the shirt he wore when Joe stopped him.

 

“Leave it on. I want to see what you look like in it after, thoroughly debauched.” he breathed into the space behind Kent's ear. Joe wasn't exactly sure where this had all come from, but assumed that his libido had kicked into overdrive to help him make up for lost time. He was saying things before they had become fully formed thoughts and was beginning to feel like he was one of the men in the videos he watched online sometimes, when it was late at night and he was lonely.

 

“Oh God, Joe. You're going to ruin me, if you haven't already.”

 

Suddenly Joe picked Kent up and carried him bridal style towards his bedroom, kissing him along the way, Kent's arms wrapped around his neck.

 

****

The next morning Joe woke first, his body aching in places that hinted at his new intimacy with Kent. His mind, however, was relatively still. The dark haired man was asleep, still wrapped in Joe's unbuttoned shirt. He somehow still had one sock on, Joe thought it was beautiful and ridiculous and it reminded him of a quote from Napoleon.

 

Joe had expected that when he finally gave into his feelings for Emerson he would be a nervous wreck afterwards. He assumed he would feel just s wound up as ever, and that he would probably be needing a talking to. He had, to use Miles' parlance, expected to have a wobble.

 

Instead he snuggled into Kent's side, lips brushing the bony rise of his collar bone and sighed contentedly. He was happy here, in this bed, with this man, and for now, it was more than enough.

He fell asleep wondering how Emerson Augustus Kent liked his eggs. Vowing to himself to make them both a hearty breakfast. If everything went the way he wanted it to, they might need their strength.

 


	4. I haven't lost it, I just misplaced it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ed and Lola, a small moment. 
> 
> Now, Lola is an original character - I thought Ed deserved someone nice. 
> 
> She will be expanded for my 'Here's the season 5 we all deserve, but never got' fic, Atropos Unlaced, when I finally work out the last few bugs. Let me know what you think of her.

“I haven't lost it', Ed insisted, with a rising inflection that indicated he knew as well as she did that he wasn't being truthful, “I've just misplaced it.”  
  
Lola raised a curved eyebrow, and stared at the archivist. She knew that Ed could never quite allow a silence to continue, so she was giving him just enough rope to hang himself.

 

He did surprisingly well. Instead of talking he had smothed his hands down the front of his grey vest and straightened his tie. He fixed his gaze back on Lola, then bounced it from his shoes, the file in his hand, the wall over her shoulder, a sad pot plant in the corner and back to his shoes again before his tongue darted out over his lip and took a deep breath.

 

That's when she knew she had him.

 

“Look, my cataloguing system might seem a little... chaotic...”

 

“No. Ed. Your system is beyond chaotic, at least chaos occasionally makes sense by accident.”

 

He looked like someone had kicked his puppy.

 

“You don't have to do this, you know.” She decided to change tack, brutal insightfulness could be a very effective weapon when used correctly.

 

“Do what?”

 

“Set up a convoluted system that only you can use. You don't have to make yourself indespensible to the team. You are already indespensible. They need you as much as they need Miles' gruff insight and Chandler's meticulous brilliance. Your mind is as useful as Kent's soft-spoken, disarming charm and Mansell's bravado and Meg and her nurturing. You don't have to hide behind this convoluted system.”  
  
Ed was dumbstruck. Lola liked him when he was like this, caught halfway between pride in himself and mute disbelief. Although, if Lola was honest, she liked him any way he happened to be. Even when he was being a faintly pretentious windbag – mainly because he really didn't know he was doing it, it was just sometimes his enthusiasm took strange guises.

 

Indeed, Lola had found herself thinking of Ed a lot lately. Cataloguing his seemingly inexhaustible array of woollen vests, getting flashes of memory of the way Ed's fingers danced over files when he thought he was onto something. The way he'd sometimes catch himself proselytising, his cheeks would colour and he'd duck his head a little in embarrassment before asking Lola what she thought. And when he asked her, he always had the good manners to listen. He'd ask her leading questions and prod her to expand on her thoughts, to share as much as she could.

 

And if this easy friendship had expanded – in her mind, at least – into a fluttering feeling of something more... well, that's just how it was. Edward Buchan was a good man.

 

“Well... how would you suggest it be arranged. It might be best if it were a system we both agreed on, I suppose. Especially if you intend to stay with me... I mean, with the archive...”  
  
“It would, and I do. You know that.” She answered with a bump in her voice, the sounds having to navigate the curve of her lip as she smiled.

 

Ed smiled back.

 


	5. Apologies

   
  
a handwritten note for you from me.


End file.
